I want to reiterate that my understanding of the poem is not the poem's core, true meaning. Once a poem goes out into the world, the poet is just one more reader.

For me, poetry is a way of thinking, and like many poets, I'm driven by the idea of trying to find the impossible, perfect words: the words that will hold my subject.

If poems very different from my own bring pleasure to a group of readers, who am I to say that the poems should have been written differently?

I want to reiterate that my understanding of the poem is not the poem's core, true meaning. Once a poem goes out into the world, the poet is just one more reader.

I try not to think in terms of what poems or poets should do. Most of us appreciate a wide diversity in music, in cooking, in movies, but in our own medium, poetry, we often fail to make allowances for tastes and projects other than our own.

I can't read my poem "Distracted by an Ergonomic Bicycle" without thinking of Seattle, where the events of the poem took place, and I can't read "In Defense of the Semicolon" without thinking of Toronto - but why should that matter to anyone else? If another reader imagines "In Defense of the Semicolon" taking place in New Orleans, great.

I don't think I did write any poems to fill narrative gaps. Not consciously, anyway. As much as possible, I try to discover my poems' subject matter through the act of writing, instead of deciding ahead of time what my poems will be about.